Monthly Archives: October 2002

Recap on the Star Tribune Minnesota Poll: Tuesday’s “memorial rally” for Senator Wellstone was the buzz yesterday, and the aftershocks are reflected in the Star Tribune today. The coverage is so lame, however, that it is barely worth a look. The news recap lets the senator’s campaign manager “take responsibility” for what transpired, without exactly exploring what that might mean. The story is “GOP demands equal time; Wellstone aide apologizes; »

I spent a good part of the evening watching national news programs that talked about the Minnesota Senate race. I noticed that all of the Democrats who were interviewed had been given the same talking points. They all said that 1) prior to Wellstone’s death, Norm Coleman had engaged in a vicious, negative campaign against Wellstone; and 2) Coleman did not observe a truce following Wellstone’s death, as the Democrats »

We’ve posted a lot on the Minnesota Senate race over the last two days, and I thought it might be helpful to try to synthesize where we think things currently stand. The most fundamental point is this: The Democrats had hoped that there would be no campaign following Wellstone’s death; that six quiet days would pass by without controversy, and that Walter Mondale would then be crowned Senator. This morning’s »

Two polls sponsored by the Baltimore Sun and the Bethesda Gazette contain good news for Republicans here in Maryland. First, Bob Ehrlich leads Kathleen Kennedy Townsend by 46% to 42%. This spread slightly exceeds the margin of error. Second, Republican incumbent Connie Morella leads Chris Van Hollen 44% to 42% in the 8th Congressional District. Morella’s support among African-Americans, an important constituency in her newly configured district, has risen from »

The Denver Post reports on the latest Zogby poll in the Colorado Senate race. The poll has Republican incumbent Wayne Allard leading Democrat Tom Strickland by 41 percent to 39 percent. Zogby views this as “terrible news” for Allard because “the undecided normally break against the incumbent.” Zogby is also predicting a Mondale victory. However, he sees the Republicans retaining control of the House. »

Usually we rely on Rocket Man to bring us the latest from DebkaFile, an Israel-based internet publication devoted to reporting and analysis of intelligence, security, and terrorism issues. However, with Rocket Man working diligently to get to the bottom of the Star Tribune’s treatment of “leaners,” it is left to me to present DebkaFile’s analysis of the Labor Party’s walkout from the Israeli government. Its basic take is similar to »

Hugh Hewitt relates the Wellstone memorial fiasco to the general deterioration of the Democrats under the leadership of Bill Clinton, Tom Daschle et al. Hugh’s article is called “Using Tragedy for Political Gain.” »

Rocket Man, we report, you decide. The Coleman campaign shares your skepticism. Here follows the Coleman campaign’s response to Daves, received a moment ago: “You admit that there was a 100% increase in the partisanship measure (to 10%) from your last poll and from what is historically valid per exit polls (which is 5%). This ignores that you generated another 5% of imbalance by not considering leaners a part of »

Trunk, if you can make head or tail of Daves’s explanation, you’re a better man than I am. He goes on and on about how they allocate “leaners,” but presumably they allocated leaners in their prior poll as well, so that can’t explain why the percentage of Democrats in the sample went from 40% to 51%. And he keeps saying that the percentage of “strong Democrats” in their most recent »

Even more on today’s Star Tribune Minnesota Poll: The Star Tribune’s Mondale/Coleman poll is obviously the story of the day and bears further examination. One of the mysteries of the the Star Tribune’s Minnesota Poll is the various formulas it employs to adjust raw survey results. I believe they are proprietary, like the formula for Coca-Cola. The formulas are in any event applied invisibly to the raw data to obtain »

The backlash against the Democrats’ political rally last night may not be limited to Minnesota. A reader from Atlanta writes, “I cannot express how shocked we were as we watched that campaign rally unfold on Fox News. I’ve voted both sides of the aisle all my adult life, but I was so appalled by the blatant attempt to capitalize on the death of a fine man and the others who »

It appears that a significant backlash against the Democrats’ over-the-top performance at the Wellstone “memorial” last night is developing. This morning Tom Barnard, the Twin Cities’ dominant radio personality, said the phone lines were “burning up” with callers expressing outrage over the Williams Arena pep-fest. Call volume was so heavy that the show had to cancel a contest because the winner couldn’t get through. Barnard said that he was born »

There is a lot of buzz this morning about the fact that television cameras showed Jesse Ventura and his wife, Terry, getting up and wallking out on the Democrats’ pep-fest at Williams Arena last night. I heard Ventura being interviewed on the radio this morning. He said that he found the Democrats’ misuse for partisan ends not only of Wellstone’s death, but of the families of the other victims of »

Republican former Congressman Vin Weber is our friend and a guy who has maintained frienships across party lines for many years. Yet Vin was not only sickened by the Democratic faux “memorial” rally yesterday, he expressed his disgust to a reporter. In the Star Tribune’s “Memorial Service” supplement this morning, Vin is quoted prominently as follows: “What a complete, total, absolute sham. The DFL clearly intends to exploit Wellstone’s memory »

Here’s the Jerusalem Post’s report on the departure of Israel’s Labor Party from Ariel Sharon’s government. All of the Labor ministers, including Defense Minister and party leader Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, have resigned, ostensibly over a dispute regarding budget allocations to Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. However, the article views the dispute as insubstantial. It suggests that Ben-Eliezer left the government in order to bolster his position in »

The Washington Post on how Kathleen Kennedy Townsend is keeping Bob Ehrlich on the defensive in their toss-up race for Maryland governor by proposing yet new restrictions on the sale of guns. Even the Post voices skepticism about efficacy Townsend’s various proposals on the subject. »